That's a terrible idea. The explanation would have to be very long - practically an essay. And the only people that will understand the explanation (or even care) are folks who are competent enough to quickly google how to disable javascript through about:config.
Increased software complexity and no tangible benefit. Lose-Lose.
What? If you can't explain in one sentence the fact that disabling JS will break most websites and it should only be done if you know what you're doing, then you've got bigger problems.
And the 'people that know what they are doing' are the ones that know what about:config is, and how to Google for extensions to disable JavaScript. It's also arguable that an extension that provides an easy 'toggle JavaScript on/off' button is a much better interface than needing to dive into the preferences pane to disable JavaScript (and possibly re-enable it sometimes).
People will still do it without understanding and then complain that Firefox broke. There is no legitimate reason your average user should have access to this checkbox. Especially when if you actually want to disable Javascript it's still very easy.
People will still do it without understanding and then complain that Firefox broke.
If that is true, then point me to all those complaints.
There is no legitimate reason your average user should have access to this checkbox.
That's called kicking away the ladder, and fuck that with a rusty chainsaw. How are people supposed to even get curious about what Javascript is, when they never hear of it?
That's the point, you don't choose when to first come across something you haven't heard of before. You don't wake up one morning and say "I guess I'll go to the library and get a book about Javascript" because you dreamed about it.
There are a million ways to display and to drill down into options that would make the FF options less cluttered, more logical, while having even more options than it does. There are ways to inform users pretty much exhaustively via built-in tooltips and documentation -- all of this has been working great in the 90s and got better since then. Icon > Title/Tooltip > Short Description > Verbose Description, so you learn everything you "stumble over" once when you need it, and from then on just use it, with the option to refresh your knowledge anytime.
Just compare about:config in Opera and Firefox, and simply accept we're dealing with different levels of skill and taste here, not just different choices.
